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On April 24 2002, Ron Paul made an address to the House on his predictions on the results of US domestic and foreign policies, ending with "I have no timetable for these predictions, but just in case, keep them around and look at them in five to ten years. Let's hope and pray I am wrong on all counts. If so, I will be very pleased." Spoiler: he is probably not pleased.
posted by ricochet biscuit on Jan 24, 2012 - 163 comments

We rifled through a bevy of 2012 predictions to bring you the mother of all roundups, every line gleaned from somewhere else.
posted by twoleftfeet on Jan 4, 2012 - 8 comments

Garth Turner, former Member of Parliament and current entertaining, curmudgeonly, and well-informed Greater Fool blogger about Canadian real estate -- and the world economy generally -- gives his predictions for 2012. The main one, IMO, is the one that he talks about relentlessly in his postings: "Most people won't get it."
posted by anothermug on Jan 1, 2012 - 30 comments

On November 22, 2011, TEDxBrussels held an all day event whose theme was: "A Day in the Deep Future." Speakers were asked to try and contemplate what life will be like for mankind in 50 years. Overview. [more inside]
posted by zarq on Dec 28, 2011 - 29 comments

Future Drama is a tumblr devoted to that particular kind of futurism - corporate prediction demos of how their products will change the world - See The Mother Of All Demos from 1968 introducing the mouse, video conferencing, teleconferencing, hypertext, word processing - Apple in 1987 - Philco-Ford The Future Now!
posted by The Whelk on Dec 6, 2011 - 23 comments

Pick a year to find out when the world should have ended/is ending/will end.
posted by daninnj on Apr 5, 2011 - 30 comments

On June 23, 1911, The Miami Metropolis published predictions about the year 2011 from Thomas Edison, including his visions of transmuting metals, a world of light-weight steel products, and writings printed on leaves of nickel that would be "so light to hold that the reader can enjoy a small library in a single volume." In Edison's future of today, five authors and an editor/publisher envision the world of publishing in the year 2021. Spoiler: nickel is not mentioned once. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief on Jan 27, 2011 - 15 comments

A lawfirm perusing the New York Times archives has examined how physician W. J. Mayo, famed industrialist Henry Ford, anatomist and anthropologist Arthur Keith, physicist and Nobel laureate Arthur Compton, chemist Willis R. Whitney, physicist and Nobel laureate Robert Millikan, physicist and chemist Michael Pupin, and sociologist William F. Ogburn foresaw the year 2011 from the year 1931, with commentary. [more inside]
posted by 1f2frfbf on Dec 15, 2010 - 13 comments

Kaggle hosts competitions to glean information from massive data sets, a la the Netflix Prize. Competitors can enter free, while companies with vast stores of impenetrable data pay Kaggle to outsource their difficulties to the world population of freelance data-miners. Kaggle contestants have already developed dozens of chess rating systems which outperform the Elo rating currently in use, and identified genetic markers in HIV associated with a rise in viral load. Right now, you can compete to forecast tourism statistics or predict unknown edges in a social network. Teachers who want to pit their students against each other can host a Kaggle contest free of charge.
posted by escabeche on Nov 13, 2010 - 10 comments

12 Events that Will Change Everything is an interactive article from Scientific American that offers rich information on potential major discoveries or cataclysms that could change the world, as well as their chances of happening. The list is a surprisingly sane look at future discontinuities as these sorts of lists go: it includes human cloning, artificial life, asteroid collisions, ice caps melting, and room temperature superconductors. For less sanity, see fifty or so ways the world could end at Exit Mundi.
posted by blahblahblah on Aug 13, 2010 - 50 comments

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have released their latest models/scenarios ("based on several simplifying assumptions") of the BP spill's impact on coastlines [more inside]
posted by griphus on Jul 2, 2010 - 24 comments

In 20 Years ... Upload a photo of yourself and the site produces a predictive illustration of what you'll look like in 20 or 30 years. And as an added bonus, you can toggle whether you're a drug addict or not. [more inside]
posted by crunchland on Jun 21, 2010 - 115 comments

Prophetic Pictures from Menominie, Wisconsin. In 1905, high school senior Albert Hansen took photogaphs of his graduating classmates at Menominie HS. Not as they were -- but as they believed, or hoped, or feared they would be in the decades to come. Dorothy M. Jesse was going to be a mathematician, and Fred Quilling a pharmacist. Alice M. Tilleson would be a prominent socialite, whose "eccentric ideas with reference to danger, force her to cling to that old fashioned vehicle, the automobile, instead of the new wheel-less aerial motor car." William C. Klatt, a future physician, would operate on disembodied heads. And Hansen himself was destined for the hobo's life. The Wisconsin Historical Society has the whole collection available online, together with the text from the yearbook and the truth, as best the Society could learn, of how the graduates' actual future compared with prophecy. (Spoiler: Fred Quilling really did become a pharmacist.) Just one of the many remarkable collections at Wisconsin Historical Images.
posted by escabeche on Feb 7, 2010 - 25 comments

"Back when I was a boy, I bought a children's book at my town's library book sale called "2010: Living in the Future" by Geoffrey Hoyle. Written in 1972, it had been withdrawn from the library's collection by the mid-80s, when I picked it up. I've somehow managed to hang onto it for 25 years and now, suddenly, here we are: 2010. I'm reproducing this long out-of-print book here to see how we're doing. Are we really living in the future?"
posted by joshwa on Jan 18, 2010 - 93 comments

In 2010, Obama will have a miserable year, NATO may lose in Afghanistan, the UK gets a regime change, China needs to chill, India's factories will overtake its farms, Europe risks becoming an irrelevant museum, the stimulus will need an exit strategy, the G20 will see a challenge from the "G2", African football will unite Korea, conflict over natural resources will grow, Sarkozy will be unloved and unrivalled, the kids will come together to solve the world's problems (because their elders are unable), technology will grow ever more ubiquitous, we'll all charge our phones via USB, MBAs will be uncool, the Space Shuttle will be put to rest, and Somalia will be the worst country in the world. And so the Tens begin.

The Economist: The World in 2010. [more inside]
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Nov 14, 2009 - 60 comments

Peak Oil, 1925. In 2000, 20% of new buildings will be solar equipped. By the late 1990s, 90% of the world's energy will be nuclear-generated. These and other erroneous projections are being collected as part of the Forecast Project on the website Inventing Green: The Lost History of Alternative Energy in America.
posted by Miko on Jul 27, 2009 - 65 comments

Wrong Tomorrow is a bit like Long Bets, except shorter and without the bets. [more inside]
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Apr 1, 2009 - 15 comments

He predicted a losing season for the White Sox in 2007 and foresaw that the Tampa Bay Rays would be the best team in the American League in 2008, although he wrongly predicted that the Rays would win the World Series. He also predicted Obama's 6-point victory over McCain. Now the stats guru Nate Silver is picking the Oscar winners and predicting an upset win for Taraji P. Henson in the Best Supporting Actress category.
posted by jonp72 on Feb 19, 2009 - 30 comments

Every year the Strategy Team at Saxo Bank, a Danish virtual bank, publishes a list of ten black swan class market events. Some of the more dramatic possibilities Saxo advance for 2009: crude trading down to $25 a barrel causing severe social unrest in Iran, the S&P 500 falling to 500, Chinese GDP approaching zero and several member states dropping the Euro. The complete 2009 list is here and for completeness their 2008 [ .pdf ] , 2007 [ .pdf ] and 2006 lists [ .pdf ] are also available. [more inside]
posted by Mutant on Jan 7, 2009 - 32 comments

On Dec 14, the often-linked Clay Shirky (most recently) ended his guestblogging stint at boingboing with a question for the commenters: What's going to happen in the next five years or so that will catch most of the rest of us by surprise, but not you? [more inside]
posted by finnb on Dec 16, 2008 - 88 comments

The 10 worst predictions for 2008 [more inside]
posted by Kirth Gerson on Dec 11, 2008 - 82 comments

In 2009, a remarkably gifted politician, confronting a remarkably difficult set of challenges, will have to learn to say "No we can't", Guantánamo will prove a moral minefield, economic recovery will be invisible to the naked eye, governments must prepare for the day they stop financial guarantees, we will judge our commitment to sustainability, scientists should research the causes of religion, we will all be potential online paparazzi, English will have more words than any other language (but it's meaningless), Afghanistan will see a surge of Western (read: American) troops, Iran will continue its nuclear quest while diplomacy lies in shambles, the sea floor is the new frontier, we should rethink aging, (non-)voters will continue to thwart the European project -- but cheap travel will continue to buoy it -- though it has some unfinished business to attend to, and a Nordic defence bond will blossom.

The Economist: The World in 2009. [more inside]
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Nov 27, 2008 - 31 comments

In 1963, General Dynamics Astronautics asked politicians, scientists, and military commanders to speculate on the potential state of the world in 2063, recording all these speculations in a book, and sealing it in a time capsule that was lost during the demolition of the General Dynamics Astronautics building. Thankfully, the entirety of the book is available as a download thanks to the fine folks at Paleo-Future. Found Via.
posted by jonson on Apr 14, 2008 - 10 comments

40 Years in the Future - Another "what will life look like in the future" article. This one from Mechanix Illustrated, 1968. (via Boing Boing)
posted by caddis on Mar 24, 2008 - 50 comments

The Cabinet Office in the UK has published "Future Strategic Challenges for Britain" [full pdf, summary pdf, website], a 180-page document which summarises current futures thinking in the UK Government, with a horizon of about 20 years. It includes predictions on big issues such as democratic participation, foreign affairs, climate change, family life and public services.
posted by athenian on Feb 8, 2008 - 6 comments

The Middleton Family at the New York World's Fair (1939). The Original Futurama. Featuring Elektro, the Smoking Robot.
posted by Soup on Dec 12, 2007 - 9 comments

In 2008, China will fail to ride the Olympics wave and improve its worldwide image, the US will vote mainly on health (barring a terrorist attack or a recession), usher in a period of pragmatic caution and toast to it over a nice Merlot, the culture wars will go global, Israel may decide that it must act alone against Iran, African gangs will prosper, UK politics will be re-established as a spectator sport, we will finally quit oil - and want yet more of it, the potato will make a comeback, an island will be moved for the sake of the Euro, we will rush to give for free what others charge for, U will HAV CASH, robots will explore the seas of Earth, which is round, by the way, pigs will fly, and we will like totally love it (don't we?).

The Economist: The World in 2008. [more inside]
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Nov 28, 2007 - 33 comments

Why science fiction is hard. Inspired by reports of a creative new, Rube-Goldberg spamming technique in World of Warcraft, MetaFilter's own Charlie Stross imagines trying to explain gold farming to someone from 1977. (Previously: 1, 2, 3)
posted by straight on Jul 20, 2007 - 61 comments

Paleo-Future: A look into the future that never was. More recent predictions include the future according to AT&T, Apple's Knowledge Navigator and Bill Gates on the Future of Police Work.
posted by phaedon on Apr 28, 2007 - 22 comments

In the year 1900, Ladies Home Journal writer John Elfreth Watkins Jr wrote an article entitled What May Happen In The Next 100 Years". This is apparently what the most learned, conservative men of the "greatest institutions of science and learning" had to say about the coming hundred years.
posted by antifuse on Apr 19, 2007 - 100 comments

In 2007 there will be lots of anniversaries, the web will keep killing the television star, the popcorn will taste familiar, humankind will come closer still to achieving immortality, and text messaging will conquer Africa. And although the spread of democracy is stalling (don't worry however - the Swedes still win (pdf)), it's still down to George Bush.

The Economist: The World in 2007.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Dec 2, 2006 - 38 comments

Much of the “jobs of the future” rhetoric surrounding the eagerness to end shop class and get every warm body into college, thence into a cubicle, implicitly assumes that we are heading to a “post-industrial” economy in which everyone will deal only in abstractions. Yet trafficking in abstractions is not the same as thinking...
posted by Kwantsar on Sep 7, 2006 - 54 comments

Can you prove it didn't happen? Best known for his work on Plan 9 from Outer Space, the Amazing Criswell had quite a career outside of his rare appearances in film. The spit-curled, stentorian psychic had a penchant for bizarre predictions, was the source for music by Mae West, and inspired some damned interesting writing.
posted by Astro Zombie on Apr 11, 2006 - 13 comments

Look...look into the LCD Ball. Divine the great spirits of tech and gaze into 2006. The new year is only a few days away, how hard is it to guess into next week?
posted by MiltonRandKalman on Dec 29, 2005 - 22 comments

Everybody's an expert, but does expertise promote better predictions?
posted by semmi on Dec 1, 2005 - 14 comments

Noted in the live stream from this TV station This is the "Local2 News" live tv stream (which has been pointed to in three previous MeFi threads about other news stories. Currently they've from time to time been showing storm track predictive models (which they say are their own development). I'd rather have pointers to more models than the TV station's occasional glimpses, but, this is the most varied set of storm track predictions I've seen. Anyone know where they're getting them?
posted by hank on Sep 22, 2005 - 24 comments

The sky is falling! From Romulus to Ronald Reagan: a comprehensive timeline of apocalyptic predictions. If you decide to put some stock in one or more of these prophecies, you may need to do some preparatory research.
posted by brundlefly on Jun 22, 2005 - 11 comments

PopaPOOLooza – a capitalistic approach to Popapalooza (discussed here).
posted by pruner on Apr 9, 2005 - 1 comment

What's hot in technogeekery? Match your predictions with Yahoo's ongoing search stats using $10,000 fake dollars as investment capital. Is this how Yahoo is going to steal Google's mindshare - or just another pointless thing to do with search engines?
posted by Sparx on Apr 4, 2005 - 6 comments

Mapping the Global Future: Report of the National Intelligence Council's 2020 Project. Explore alternative futures, by creating own scenarios for global changes within the next 15 years.
posted by Gyan on Jan 14, 2005 - 9 comments

Robert X cringely's tech predictions for 2005 Discuss.
posted by delmoi on Jan 10, 2005 - 17 comments

There's still time for some of these 2004 predictions to come true, but not much. For those of us who like schadenfreude (pleasure at another's mis-fortune, har): the paranormal survey, the pet psychic, the banal, the faith-based.
posted by nj_subgenius on Dec 28, 2004 - 4 comments

Predicting 2004.
posted by sdrawkcab on Dec 23, 2004 - 20 comments

Gates talks about our future. Bill gates shows a side that is rarely seen by computer users. Love him or hate him, I just want to know why he doesn't want me to have one of these some time in the next 15 years too.
posted by sourbrew on Jul 13, 2004 - 25 comments

Why Stock Markets Crash : Critical Events in Complex Financial Systems. Professor Didier Sornette of UCLA has some very interesting things to say about stock markets. In his book, he explains how his "theory of cooperative herding and imitation [...] has detected the existence of a clear signature of herding in the decay of the US S&P500 index since August 2000 with high statistical significance, in the form of strong log-periodic components." Although his timing has been just a bit early, the theory, the predictions to date and the pictures are all pretty uncanny. This is easily the most interesting book on the stock market I have ever read and provides interesting and believable hypotheses about things I never imagined could have rigorous explanations. For an overview, here is an interview with the author.
posted by muppetboy on May 14, 2004 - 19 comments

Quake to hit LA "by September 5," predicts a geophysicist at UCLA's Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics. Some skeptical, while others say it's not junk science.
posted by valerie on Apr 15, 2004 - 34 comments

Robert X. Cringely's Predictions for 2004 : first he updates readers on his 2003 predictions (80% accuracy) and then dishings 15 new techie prophecies.
posted by boost ventilator on Jan 2, 2004 - 19 comments

A better 2004? A mixed look at what Indian and Chinese astrologers see for the new year. We're soon to move into the Chinese year of the monkey, a symbol of revolution, movement and changes... a year of more conflict and disharmony in international relationship but there are good chances of seeing new light and brighter future after struggles.
But on the brighter(ish) side, Stargazers agree that the coming 12 months cannot fare much worse than the seesaw ride that the world went through in 2003, dogged by war in Iraq, fluctuating financial markets and mysterious diseases.
posted by amberglow on Jan 1, 2004 - 16 comments

Aids in Africa - you know the facts right? Well perhaps not, what you know are the predictions of a Computer Model. Rian Malan in today's Spectator highlights how alarmingly inaccurate such models are proving. Paul Henman illustrates how common it is to build political assumptions into a model and then hide them under layers of complexity and apparent objectivity. Think global warming. How do we challenge the models that increasingly determine our opinions and priorities?
posted by grahamwell on Dec 12, 2003 - 15 comments

A vision of the future? "Although there is debate over the exact date it started, on November 02, 2000, a person calling themselves Timetravel_0, and later John Titor, started posting on a public forum that he was a time traveler from the year 2036." What follows are tales of the "future" involving civil and global nuclear war, schematics for a "time machine", and an IBM 5100 computer from 1974. (Grain of salt not included.)
posted by emptybowl on Sep 10, 2003 - 30 comments

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